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Video: Intel-powered set-top box running Flash, decoding HD video
Intel's making a big TV push here at IDF, and a lot of it centers around the CE 3100 Media Processor, which combines an 800MHz Pentium M core with a proprietary video processing core all on one chip. That's about as much power as a 1.2GHz Atom, and it's enabled some pretty cool demos, like this box that's running a custom Flash Lite UI on top of Linux. The video silicon accelerates H.264 playback, so newer YouTube content looked fantastic -- some of the best big-screen YouTube we've ever seen actually. That's all the software was optimized for, however -- older content that required software decoding looked much worse, and playback wasn't stellar. That's down to optimization, though, and we're willing to forgive it, especially since the demo was put together in two weeks or so. Of course, the big question when you're looking at an IA core running Flash is whether or not this rig can do Hulu on a big screen, and the answer was cautious but optimistic: it's technically possible and even somewhat easy, but as usual it all comes down to Hulu allowing it. (What else did you expect?) Still, it's interesting to see a set-top box with some actual processing power, and Intel's got some more interesting demos for us coming up, including a three-tuner Tru2Way HTPC that can send video to a PS3. Video after the break!
INQ Mini 3G review
The INQ Mini 3G is quite the intriguing little phone. It has the dimensions and outward appearance of a standard issue featurephone, yet aims to provide the multifunctional utility of the bulkier QWERTY keyboard-sporting smartphones that now roam these lands. With deep integration of Facebook, Twitter and Skype, it's designed to be a do-it-all social networking device, so we thought we'd run a few status updates through it to see if the latest spin on an award-winning heritage lives up to its billing. Make the short journey to Engadget Mobile, via the read link below, to find out. %Gallery-73445%
The Engadget Show - 001: Jon Rubinstein, Bit Shifter, iPod event, Moto CLIQ, N900
Well it's finally, really happened. The very first Engadget Show is done and ready for your viewing pleasure. First up, Josh sits down with Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein for an in-depth discussion, then Nilay and Paul join the fray for a dissection of recent news -- including the recent Apple iPod event, the Motorola CLIQ, and a hands-on look at an early version of the as-yet-unreleased Nokia N900! We're still getting our T's crossed and I's dotted for the Zune and iTunes subscriptions, but you can download the full HD video below -- or just sit back and watch the streaming file up above. Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel Special guest: Jon Rubinstein Produced and directed by: Chad Mumm Music by: Bit Shifter Visuals by: Paris and outpt Download the Show: The Engadget Show - 001 (HD) / The Engadget Show - 001 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted) / The Engadget Show - 001 (Extra small - 319MB) Subscribe to the Show: [iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V). [Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (M4V). [RSS M4V] Add the Engadget Show feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically. HD torrent: http://nixil.net/engadget_show_001.torrent
Lenovo T400s touch hands-on and impressions
From the outside, the new Lenovo T400s touch doesn't look all that exciting -- unless you're the sort to get excited over ThinkPads, in which case you're probably quite stoked that it looks exactly like the non-touch T400s. But it's actually a pretty crazy product -- it's a regular laptop with a high-end four-finger capacitive touchscreen. Not a tablet, not a convertible, just a laptop. And a ThinkPad, so you've already got both a touchpad and a TrackPoint to get around. It's a little puzzling until you use it, and realize that just casually reaching out and touching the display sort of makes a lot of sense. Sort of -- there aren't a lot of apps that take advantage of multitouch right now, and while Lenovo's SimpleTap app launcher / control panel system is a cool demo, it's more of a nifty feature than a killer app. Still, it's nice to see a responsive capacitive touchscreen make the touch features of Windows 7 much more fun to use, and while we didn't end up trying to touch our regular laptop screens when we were done with the T400s touch, we'd certainly spring for the option if we were in the market. Check a little video after the break. %Gallery-72987%
Video: Spawn Labs HD-720 aims to be the Slingbox to your game console, we go hands-on
Sure, your heart may be aflutter with thoughts of gaming cloud services like OnLive and OTOY, but quietly making its debut this week is Spawn Labs with its "Bring Your Own console" HD-720 video game streamer, due out this November for $199.95. In a nutshell, the device works as a Slingbox for your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PS2, or GameCube and lets you play those consoles over the internet on your Windows PC (a Mac client is said to be in the works). The AV cables -- component or composite, no HDMI at this point -- are connected and can be then passed through to a TV as normal. A USB connection is used to sync up the controller, and there's also an IR signal for turning the connected system(s) on and off. On the computer, you can log the Spawn Labs website and play either your own system or jump onto one of your friends' systems for some faux-local co-op or to be a spectator. We had a chance to take a look at the streamer and talk with some of the minds behind it at TechCrunch 50 to fill in some of the missing details. In a fairly controlled environment -- the device hooked up via ethernet to a private router on the show floor -- we were able to competently play Soul Calibur IV with what we were told was around 100ms audio / video and 5ms controller lag. Under ideal situations, it streams 720p / 30 frames per second in H.264 video with AAC-LC audio, but that can automatically downscale when the connection slows -- should we decide we're too lazy to make it from our bedroom to the couch to play Halo (an all too frequent scenario), it'll clearly work fine over a local network, but it's gonna be how well it works across that internet that's the real deal-breaker, and we weren't able to test that. Cross-continent play isn't recommended, but you can have spectators from all over the world and it won't at all affect your latency. Any PC controller can work and be custom-mapped, including just keyboard and mouse, although if you're wanting to use a PS3 pad you'll have to find the drivers for it yourself. The game window itself has buttons along the bottom for pulling up the system's specific guide menu or recording the video for upload to YouTube. What's impressive to us is that it's said to work with any computer that can handle a 720p video stream, and so far in the labs they've apparently got it working well on an ION-based netbook -- but we didn't get to see that for ourselves, so we'll hold applause until we can put it through its paces ourselves. See a video demonstration for yourself after the break.
HP ENVY 13 and 15 bring luxury to the everyman, look like MacBooks
There's no getting around it, so we'll just say right at the outset: HP's new ENVY 13 and 15 laptops might've been built on the "Voodoo ENVY legacy," but they sure look a lot like Apple's unibody MacBook Pros. Of course, there's much more than meets the eye. The ENVY 13 is a bit of a mix between a traditional 13-incher and a real thin and light, weighing in at 3.74 pounds and packing in Radeon HD 4330 discrete graphics, but still forgoing an internal disc drive. The 13.1-inch WXGA display is the real draw, offering impressive colors (82% color gamut) and brightness (410 nit). The other big winner is the optional Slim Fit extended life battery, a slice which snaps onto the bottom of the laptop, hardly protrudes, and more than doubles the standard 7 hour quoted battery life. The laptop body is magnesium coated with aluminum -- which gives it the texture of a MacBook Pro, but a bit less of the weight. In our non-scientific tests the build wasn't exactly as rigid as a MBP, but still quite a bit stronger than the average laptop -- and quite nice to the touch. The MacBook-style glass clickpad, however, is not an exciting addition in our book, since the software to support the automagical detection of left and right click -- not to mention zoom, rotate and scroll gestures -- just wasn't very tight. Please, give us back our buttons. HP's ENVY 15 isn't much of a "thin and light," really, more of a straight up premium 15-incher crammed into a 1-inch thick 5.18 pound form factor. It keeps the ENVY 13's unibody-style construction, and, sadly, the single button glass trackpad, but also works in a new Core i7 processor, makes room for dual SSD drives and adds high-end Radeon HD 4830 graphics with 1GB of VRAM. The 15.6-inch LCD isn't quite as stellar as the 13, at 300 nits, but HP did manage to include support for a Slim Fit battery for the ENVY 15 -- though with non-switchable discreet graphics, you're not going to get much longevity out of this laptop either way. The two laptops start at $1,699 and $1,799, respectively (a far cry from the original ENVY 133's $2,100 starting price), and will be available on October 18th with Windows 7 pre-loaded. Check out video of the ENVY 13 after the break. %Gallery-72803% %Gallery-72809%
VIZIO Connected TV & VIZIO Internet App platform demoed at CEDIA
With VIZIO's first LED local dimming backlit HDTV just days away from debut and its first Connected TV nearing production, we were able to lay eyes and hands on the television and its funky QWERTY Bluetooth / IR combo remote. Check the pics and videos (including looks at VIZIO's smaller LED sets ready to hit shelves this fall) for a look at our walkthrough; in the demos at least, the VIZIO Internet Apps platform was speedy and easy to use, however our experience with widgets so far has given us more than enough reason to wait for a full retail rollout before making any final decisions. One tidbit for those not ready to invest a whole new TV? The next iteration of VIZIO's Blu-ray player should pack not only integrated Wi-Fi, but also the full VIA / widget experience.
Video: ATI Radeon Eyefinity eyes-on, featuring Left 4 Dead on a 175-inch display
Vision rebranding wasn't AMD's only big unveil yesterday, as the company had on display a number of different stations for its ATI Radeon Eyefinity technology. Sure, there's three-monitor Google Earth and airbrushing, but the real kicker, in case you doubted earlier claims that playing Left 4 Dead on three 30-inch screens "absolutely changes the experience for the better," is footage of the game being playing on a 175-inch display, comprised of six HD projectors and boasting 5,500 x 2,000 pixel resolution. Sure, it's not the greatest gaming screen we've seen, but short of having access to your own football stadium, it's mighty impressive. See for yourself after the break.
Video: First working Blu-ray Managed Copy demo
Just because Pioneer isn't in the plasma business anymore doesn't mean the company is dead, and one of the new points of focus over there is on media aggregation. So part of the new do-it-all Entertainment Tap concept Pioneer was displaying today included a demo of storing Managed Copies of Blu-ray Discs on a hard drive. The copy itself was done in about 4x real time (dependent on the drive's speed) and looked great thanks to some hardware transcoding. We also appreciated the Pioneer interface that made copying the disc easy. Of course at this point this is just a demo, with no word on availability or price, but it is a start to what will one day hopefully be a better way to enjoy HD movies.
Video: Motorola CLIQ gets demoed in detail
CLIQs are pretty hard to come by in the wake of Motorola's big announcement today, but we flagged down an all-too-nice rep who showed off the phone's major talking points. Though it's got the same old Qualcomm MSM7201a beating in its chest that we've found in countless other Android and WinMo phones -- not anything thoroughly modern like Snapdragon -- we're feeling cautiously optimistic that MOTOBLUR is snappier in day-to-day use than HTC's competing Sense. The built-in widgets Motorola is supplying look top-notch with a ton of spit and polish (seemingly without sacrificing speed or usability), so all told, we think Moto's been really cranking this year baking this platform to a golden crisp. Follow the break for the epic demo, and pay special attention to the white model when the rep pulls it out -- the back was supposed to be stylized Morse code that reads "I love Friday nights," but apparently they ran out of space, so it's now just random dots on a cover. At least it still looks cool, though, and that's the important thing.
The Palm Pixi is official, headed to Sprint this holiday season -- we've got hands-on and video!
The Palm Pixi has officially arrived, and if you're an avid reader of Engadget (you'd better be), this device should look a little bit familiar to you. We first broke specs and images of the phone -- codenamed Eos and the alternately-spelled "Pixie" -- back in April, when we nabbed what appeared to be a leak of a new, Centro-esque phone headed to AT&T. Today, Palm has announced that the Pixi -- a tiny, sleek webOS-based handset -- will be coming to Sprint this holiday season. The phone will hit shelves sans-WiFi (EV-DO Rev. A only here), with 8GB of storage onboard (a nice bump up from the rumored 4GB), 2 megapixel camera (with flash), a full QWERTY keyboard, and a minute, 2.63-inch, 320 x 400 capacitive display (guess they didn't get that HTC memo). Along with the new handset, Palm will offer five artist-designed back covers in the "Palm Pixi Artist Series" -- similar to Zune Originals and Dell's Design Studio laptops -- which can be purchased separately... of course. Touchstone owners take heart: those backs, as well as a separate black backing that you'll also pay extra for, are all compatible with the accessory. In addition to the hardware, Palm will be introducing a native Facebook app when the Pixi hits, as well as new Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration for Synergy. Right now no date for launch has been set, though Palm says the phone will be ready in time for the holidays. The company is also mum on price, but coupled with the news that Sprint will be slimming the Pre's entry point down to $149.99, we have to assume it's going to be in the $99-or-less ballpark. We had a chance to play around with the new phone, so read on after the break for our initial, early impressions.
Nikon Coolpix S1000pj hands-on at IFA
We're still curious to see how well the integrated projector in Nikon's Coolpix S1000pj does under real-world lighting and usage conditions, but it sure seems pretty in the controlled environment of the company's IFA booth. The crew from Engadget Spanish say the novel cam is a lot thinner than you'd expect -- check out the video and a gallery of sample shots after the break.
Zoom Q3 ears-on: it's like 'Stop Making Sense' saw your YouTube lip sync video and liked it
What's this blue monstrosity? A YouTube-happy concert bootlegger's new best friend. The Zoom Q3 (which is distributed by Samson in the States) pairs a decent stereo mic and some in-depth audio controls with a regular crappy pocket video camera sensor -- along with an oversized screen to make room for audio level meters. There are obviously limited situations where this is really necessary (there are plenty of much better dedicated mics for when you don't need the VGA video to go along with it), and all your cutesy Flip mino-toting friends are going to laugh at you, but at least you'll be able to crank up your recording to lossless and capture their cackles with eardrum shattering clarity. Check out a video of the Zoom Q3 shot with another Zoom Q3 after the break and decide for yourself if it's worth the slightly premium $249 pricetag.
LG HS200 'pocket projector' hands-on reveals an FM transmitter and embedded DivX surprise
Small, bright, and wireless: a potent trifecta of win for an ultra-portable projector. LG's new HS200 DLP projector is here at IFA sourcing DivX video off local USB media and throwing the audio over its embedded FM transmitter. And because it's LED-based, it racks up numbers like 200 ANSI-Lumens and 30,000 hours of operation before burn-out -- that's 4 hours of operation per day for oh, say, 20 years. The 80-inch, 800x600 pixel moving image that we saw was reasonably bright in a demo-room where ambient lighting was on par with a daytime living room, curtains closed. The viewing and listening experience was more than passable, enjoyable even, and far superior to what you'll get from a pico projector. Jacks include HDMI, RGB / component, and composite with an expected price of €499 when it lands in Europe this month (coming to the US a few months later). See it for yourselves in the video after the break.
UMEC's Android videophone and MID prototypes stray from the beaten path
We've seen plenty of odd Android permutations, but UMEC seems to be striving to do something all its own. It's showing two devices it currently has in the works, one is a videophone / hub / DECT phone / etc. unit (pictured), which might be at home on a countertop, while the other is a brightly hued MID, with similar internal specs but more portable aims. Both are running ARM Cortex A8 processors (like the iPhone 3GS), though there's some significant OS optimization to be done: everything was incredibly sluggish on the videophone, and the MID was locked up at the time we dropped by. UMEC also doesn't have the touchscreen drivers working for either device, though the good news is that they're looking at both capacitive and resistive touchscreens, based on what the reseller that picks these up desires. Luckily, the videophone has USB plugs galore (along with plenty of Ethernet jacks) so we were able to get a quick demo of the device using a mouse and keyboard. The MID also has a full-size USB plug, and both devices sport HDMI out, so the end usage for both of these is really up in the air. Check 'em out on video after the break.
Samsung's LED TV Couple packs a 7-inch tablet remote for streaming TV and so much more
Without much fanfare, Samsung has released a TV / tablet combo in Korea that seems to deliver on all the untapped promise in Toshiba's JournE touch tablet. Dubbed the LED TV Couple, Samsung has paired a 55-inch LED baclkit LCD TV with a brand new 7-inch touchscreen tablet, which communicates with and controls a full home theater over 802.11n WiFi. The tablet offers a visual program guide, including video previews of TV shows, along with access to media stored on a PC -- which can in turn be "tossed" up to the full TV -- and even a few widgets. But the real money is in the pair's ability to stream live TV and Blu-ray content from the home theater to the tablet, making that next trip to the kitchen for munchies so much less painful. No word on a US or Europe release, but we hope to see a lot more of this pair in the near future. Peep them in action after the break.
FujiFilm Real 3D camera given a video hands-on by fake 3D journalists
The first thing you notice about FujiFilm's €499 Real 3D W1 camera is its size. It's big -- big in the way that bloggers see main stream media journalists as big. And the industrial design is straight-up Cold War. Still, it delivers 3D without special glasses and does so with surprisingly realistic detail -- it really does work. Yeah, you have to position yourself oh so carefully just in front of FujiFilm's €349 FinePix 3D Viewer or printed photos courtesy of a FujiFilm web service, but the novelty might be worthwhile for those with money to burn. It begins shipping to Europe and likely beyond in late September. Check the video demonstration from IFA and let Germania wash over you.
Olympus E-P1 meets 50-200mm SWD lens monstrosity, hilarity ensues
We've already seen plenty of the Olympus E-P1, but when we dropped by Olympus' booth today at IFA we just couldn't resist slapping on the biggest lens they had, courtesy of the micro four thirds to standard four thirds adapter, and shooting a bit of dramatic show floor footage. The verdict? It's totally impractical, especially because there's no autofocus during video with certain lenses, meaning we're stuck working the manual focus ring, D90-style. Still, we didn't expect anything different, and our short film entitled "People Wandering Around, Totally Out of Focus" really made the effort worth while. Oh, and for our money? The white model is about twice as sexy as the gray. Videos are after the break.
LG BL20 hands-on: putting the 'slider' back in 'Chocolate'
For all its good looks and lickable icons, the BL40 hardly feels like a "Chocolate" phone -- abandoning the featurephone functionality and slider form factors that are usually associated with the moniker. Well, the newly surfaced BL20 (previously spotted as the BL42) is here to solve all that. The slider handset has capacitive touch controls below the screen, but the screen itself is not a touchscreen. The functionality has also been trimmed back from the BL40's app extravaganza, but the interface looks and actual hardware seem very similar. We had a little trouble getting around in the German interface, but if you can handle our bumblings you can check out a video of the phone after the break.
Video hands-on: Samsung's YP-M1 media player is Tegra-based but no Zune HD
An NVIDIA Tegra chipset pumping away at the heart of a portable media player is no guarantee of success. See, there's this little thing called software and Samsung's YP-M1, aka Beat Player M1, still needs some tweaking. It's not awful, but the performance isn't even close to being Zune HD-like. Perhaps Samsung's using a weaker Tegra system-on-chip. We don't know. We're told that these are hand-made engineering prototypes so there's hope that Sammy can work out the kinks before these players go production. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a real sense for the audio quality from the show floor due to the DJ mixing his decks not 10 feet from our position. What we can say for sure is that it's a fingerprint magnet, the volume buttons are hopelessly small and far too tightly packed into the upper-edge of the player, and the Gingerbread Man is dead... Fa La la lalalala la, dead. Watch the fatal pummeling from our massive beef hammers in the video after the break.
